During the city council meeting on June 27, the city council approved the 2022/2023 Fort Bragg budget, while acknowledging there might be some amendments to the city staff cost of living adjustments when the compensation rate study is completed. The council also extended the cut-off date for water shut-offs on unpaid balances.
During public comment, many community members and City staff showed up to discuss the cost-of-living adjustments for City staff. The budget has in place a 3% COLA, while the staff requested a 5%. Raising this to 5% would cost the City an additional $42,000.
According to Patrick Hickey, field representative from the Service Employees International Union, there were concerns that the classification and compensation study that the City commissioned wasn’t conducted in a balanced manner. The study looked at other cities and their wages, to get a good base of what the City should be paying its staff. However, according to Hickey, the comparable cities in the study have a much lower cost of living, making this study unbalanced.
According to Frank Kemper, who tests Fort Bragg’s water and wastewater, the low wages of Fort Bragg create significant problems when hiring. To test the water, employees need training and certificates to do the job properly. Kemper struggles to hire skilled workers who are willing to move to Fort Bragg with the high cost of living when they can make more money in other cities.
Kemper, among other commenters, also pointed out that the staff was only asking for an additional 2%, which isn’t a large increase.
“Two percent just doesn’t seem like it’s worth it for us to be getting all upset about this stuff,” Kemper said. “It’s just silly, just silly when the numbers say that you have it.”
According to City Manager David Spaur, the compensation study that Hickey referenced has been a frustrating process. According to Spaur, the study was supposed to be completed by the end of June, but the consultant had been slow at pulling numbers from other cities and been pushing some of that work onto the City staff.
However, Spaur says the list of comparable cities includes all cities suggested by staff members and committee members and that he didn’t exclude any cities based on anything other than a population larger than 50,000. Spaur also said that he personally would like to have the most competitive cities possible on the list.
Spaur suspects the compensation study will be completed in July or August.
Spaur also confirmed that the budget can be amended later by the council to adjust the COLA, and the amendment would be retroactive to July 1. This means that if the compensation rate study is completed in August, the COLA can be adjusted by the council and the salaries would be retroactively paid to the staff.
The council also extended the deadline for water shut-offs for bills over $2000 from June 30 to August 31. During the March 28 meeting, the City Council approved water shut-offs for those accounts because low-income customers could apply for the California Low Income Household Water Assistance Program. However, this program has been slow to roll out. The council extended the deadline to August 31, with the hope that the program will be in place by then. Low-income customers are encouraged to apply for this grant.
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